Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1887-07-01
A MEXICAN FLOWER SHOW.
Peculiar Types of Spanish and Mexi
can Beauty-A Gambling Girl
IAIaxico attar N he RoStnn Herald

Peculiar Types of Spanish and Mexi-
can Beauty-A Gambling Girl.
Mexico Letter in the Boston Herald
All types of Spanish and Mexican beauty
filled the little plaza of Mixcoac that Sunday
forenoon. There were the flashing eyes of
CASTLE, the large, liquid, melancholy eyes of
the Moors set in true Moorish faces and the
gray or blue eyes of the Germanic conquer-
ors of the Iberian peninsula. There was a
tall, slender girl in neat brown toilet, with
eyes that seemed to magnetic her admirers
eyes dark and lustrous, which were not
used with ortfulness, but were by nature
and without art of the sort that make of
these susceptible male Latins slaves and
serfs. One superb woman might have been
taken for a goddess of Mexican liberty. She
was of blonde type, but with dark eyes;
erect, sympathetic in the Spanish and italian
sense, of noble proportions, fit for the can
vas of Titan. There were so many hand
some women and girls on the grounds that
the men who had come out to see the flower
show quite forgot the wonders of vegetation
and gave themselves up to admiration of
natures masterpiece. Mexico might make
of her finest women an exhibit that would
conquer the hearts of civilized men and
bring half of Europe here to find its fate.
A feature of the exhibition, and tolerated
with true southern carelessness, was the
gambling. There were roulette tables in
full swing, card games, and last, but not q
bit the least, the three-card monte men.
All these people and their apparatus were
kept outside the low wall of the plaza. 1t
was very funny to watch the monte sharps,
who were each accompanied by one or two
confederates, who affecting Indifference,
would saunter up and win from one to five
dollars with entire equanimity. But all
hod he ar6.
deep, dropping lines over the lips that mark
the man who lives by games of chance. The
monte operators had blankets of gaudy hue
which they sat upon, manipulating the cards
with great rapidity and calling out incessant-
y;.co,ouo,o, co,ouoao, co,o,.ao, p,on
co! Blanco! Blancol tantas vueltas tantas
vueltas!" &c., till one was quite deafened.
One chap had a confederate who assumed
the role of nurse girl. She was modestly
dressed in a cotton frock, and neat cotton
repozo covered head and shoulders. She
was the picture of girlish innocence, and
when she first staked her big silver dollar on
the card she had selected thougt her a sort
of foolish maiden who was being entrapped
by guileful man. She won and then tried
again and won once more. Some people,
tempted by her luck, tried their hand-and
lostl Soon the monte sharp had shifted his
blanket to another place. I followed him
ant1 Cnoto Lounu' Clylns Hof Aauo aSaln, tuaI
innocent damsel dressed as nursemaid in
the service of good family. AS often as
the monte man took a new place 80 often
was to be found the nurse girl, and how art
lessly she won her dollars, which afterwards
she slyly gave back to her partner. Many
soldiers played at roulette, some wining and
some losing. The faces of big-eyed little
boys watching the rolling of the ball were a
study. The police stood about idly, never
interfering with the busy gamblers, but
ready to see that no one robbed the piles of
silver lying on blankets on the ground or on
red colored tables in the open air or under
tents People lost and won, and generally
lost. No one complained to the police, and
no one exulted over his luck or bemoaned
his loss. The best people did not gamble,
though one handsome man, with his wife on
his arm, felt her tug at his sleeve to take
him away from particularly good chance to
pick up a monte mans nile